How Could This Be Real?

76. I'm Such An Idiot!

He exhaled and I could tell he wanted to protest, but then he paused and groaned. "Ugh, my time is up. Please don't let this bother you, just pretend everything is normal. I love you, Angel. I'll see you soon."

"I love you too. We'll get you out of this, I promise."

"Bye Princess." I heard the click of the receiver and just listened to the dial tone for a minute.

Oh, David. I'm so sorry. I love you so much. They'll see it our way by the time I'm done with them. I just know it...

***

Later that day, I invited all of his friends into a Skype call. Not everyone answered, which I'd expected would happen, but Ash and Sqaishey accepted right away which I was grateful for. Speedy wasn't answering, so I sent him an email saying that it was urgent and that got his attention. Once he'd joined, I took a deep breath and started speaking.

"Hi guys, thanks for answering. I know you're really busy so I'll try to make this quick."

"Take all the time you need," Sqaishey said with a smile.

I let out a low breath, "I'm afraid I have some bad news. It's about Squid." Ash's eyebrows furrowed and I knew he was probably going to flip out at this. I bit my lip and closed my eyes, "He... well, he got arrested."

"WHAT?!" Ash yelled and I heard the others gasp. "What did he do?!"

"I'd rather not talk about it," I muttered. "The important thing is, he's innocent. I know it, he knows it, and we're going to convince everyone else of it too. However, for the time being, he's in jail. I don't know how long he's going to have to stay there, but I'm hoping it's no longer than a week or two."

"Oh, Elsie..." came Sqaishey's sympathetic voice. "Are you alright? This must be so hard for you."

I nodded, "Yeah, I'm holding up." I didn't really want to, but I hesitantly opened my eyes. She was gazing at me with concern, Ash was fuming, and Speedy just looked in total shock. "I called to ask for your help."

"Of course, we'll do anything we can," Sqaishey said calmly.

I looked at Speedy and his blue eyes widened in surprise. I didn't really know him, I don't think anyone did except David, but he was almost always there. Whenever the gang just hung out and played random games he would play with us, but he liked being in the background, just watching everything go down and listening to our conversations. He probably knew more about us than anyone, but we barely knew him. I'd hardly ever heard him speak and rarely took notice of him, so looking right at him like this was a little strange.

"Speedy, he asked you to take over uploading for him. He said you knew his password, is that right?" He nodded. "Good. Try to keep his schedule as normal as you can with the backlog he has. Once that runs out though, I'll have sent you any videos of mine that he's in." I glanced at Ash who looked like he was trying really hard not to explode. "I was hoping you could do the same."

He ground his teeth, "Why was he arrested?"

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, "Ash, please, I'm asking you to do something."

"Elsie," he said sternly. "Tell me what he did."

I shook my head, "He didn't do anything, they just think he did."

I could tell it was getting very difficult for him to not lose his temper. "Then what do they think he did?"

I waved it off, "I'll tell you once we're alone if you really need to know. But please, focus." I looked into his eyes to make sure he was paying attention. "Can you send Speedy any videos you have with Squid in them? Even if you don't have his footage, it's fine. We just don't want his subs to get too worried."